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1. Choose the top five 2. Order from 1-5 best to worst 3. Choose one that is the overall worst sounding

Your selection results should have 6 total each: the top five (#1-#5) and the overall worst (#6).__________________________

You may notice some variables in atmosphere between different examples. I did not spend a lot of time attempting to make this a level playing field but I did avoid relatively significant differences. The survey is focused on the sounds you prefer rather than making it about one plug-in vs. other plug-ins. Eventually, responses may reveal opinions of certain products by accident as I am withholding the software used in each example. Also, volume levels are inconsistent so you will need to compensate with your volume adjustment when listening to a few.

Note: I may have made this more difficult by having so many examples (18) to choose from. Just run through them taking note of your impressions. Make a couple of passes if necessary listening, making notes and eliminating. Then from what is left decide how to rate them.

Tip: When on the Soundcloud page do not double-click on any files. Instead, hover your mouse cursor over the first file and click on the play arrow from there. This will trigger the first file to play and each will automatically play when the previous file has ended.

=>Note: You should see the letter of the file that is playing at the top of your browser or tab label. When the last file ends it does not necessarily go back to the first file automatically. For some reason it can become random.

Thank you for participating!

*Forum member Allan Wang originally performed this melody for another thread question. I thought the piece worked really well to show off characteristics in software piano plug-ins. Thanks Allan!

I incorrectly identified a sound source D as Garageband/Pianoteq when D is Galaxy Vintage D with custom EQ/Processing.

How? When I originally created the DAW working files I pretty much stuck with one product then moved on. Sometimes I went back to rework something or to dig through additional presets. I created several DAW project files. I could not use one for all of this because it taxed my system.

When I was ready to make mp3s I opened the projects and exported sound files naming them A-P. I made notes on an index card. Initially, the designated letters of the mp3 files showed a pattern as they were grouped together according to the software.

The final step in the process was renaming the files to shuffle the sequence to make it random. I manually randomized the sequence making additional notations in my notes. Many people said 18 files were too many. I had more that I did not include. I misread my notes thinking I had uploaded the Garageband/Pianoteq file.

I thought of using HalionSonic after I had completed and uploaded the others to SoundCloud. With 18 files, having a couple made with the same product next to each other would not matter. I ended up with both HalionSonic files (Q&R) back to back at the end.

Very difficult and dangerous comparison. If you would ask the same thing about wine ; people really don't recall the exact taste of the glass nr 1 , when they are at number 3 or 4 . Also the judgement will be colored in respect to the other samples you hear, because you hear differences "in relation" to the other sounds, not completely on it's isolated own. It will be quite easy to distinguish the best ones from the real bad ones, but in the middle range it is very hard and may even vary when you listen at different times, under different circumstances and in relation to other samples than before.

Therefore I hope it will not be a 'contest' to decide what's the best sound; it's not unbiased and scientifically correct setup to determine that. Due to the human factor 'taste' that's also not possible. The reason I say this, is because readers might take the final outcome (with real product names) for granted and once it's out on the web it starts leading it's own live and may mislead readers into thinking product A is better than product B, because these results say so. Turning on or off a (bad ? ) reverb on one sound and not on the other can already completely distort judgement.

So..that's of my chest; now I must confess the test is interesting and I will try to do it later on and I applaud the effort ! Just hope it will not be a naming game in the end , without taking into account the samples may be too different in settings and the test too unscientific to make a pure unbiased judgement.

I agree with your feelings about the potential confusion and outcome of a survey like this. That is why I have set up the rules to eliminate the large middle range between the best and worst. It is not even that important to order the top five, just picking the best 5 out of 18 and a worst would work. This survey is about the sounds you like and dislike the most, not about the software.......yet it will be interesting for people to see what is what.

Before looking at anyone's post, I picked D as number one. It sounded really usable. That said, settings make a world of difference, so it may be it just had the most pleasing setting. I couldn't use any of the settings...too much dreamy reverb in them all, so I had to listen "through" that to discern the underlying tone. Still, very entertaining and interesting. This must have taken some time and effort, thanks for posting it. I look forward to the big reveal!

I'm interested in the results. For me to pick though, I would need something simpler, such as chords, bass and treble notes hitting octaves, repeating with different pedal pressures. These are the kind of things I do before playing actual music, to determine the intimacy the sound creates.

I only find letters A to J, don´t know where you picked up the other letters???

Hit Refresh/Reload to reload the page. It seems that the entire page did not make it to your browser.

I stupidly mised to see the scroll bar on the right: yes there are letters A to R. So I will repeat my test including the other samples as well, ...but this will take some time, maybe 2 days until I found time for it.

UPDATE: I repeated my test listening now to all samples, and subsequently edited my former post to only show my final findings

Upon re-listening to the samples I'm beginning to think the most (but not all) of these samples are really the same piano, but with different tone/timber/hammer adjustments.

All have a somehow metallic character, some extremely, but some others so subtle that I couldn´t decide if they really all have the same base underlaying or if they are actually different ones. But, so many forum members who point out that the software pianos would be so nice. I only found 3 worth to _maybe_ one day spend money for them - but didn´t feel at all any need to change what I have. The newly submitted sample "S" is at least as good, and if really available for free, then I could give it a try. Paying for any of A to S at the moment? I am much reserved about this.

Hi Marco,Not wanting to hijack this thread, I will spill the beans about sample 'S':

It is a hybrid of "Piano One" by Sound Magic and the demo version of Pianoteq (Bluethner Model) by Modartt. So they both indeed start with the letter 'P' but there was a little trickery involved.

Piano One is a sleeper in my opinion as a source of really good, clean, unlooped samples for free. However, it, like most piano software out there, is lacking in the sympathetic resonance department. This is where Pianoteq comes in.

Pianoteq is being mixed together at a lower volume with Piano One on top. They both are running at the same time and reading the same MIDI file. The reason I need Reaper is that this program allows me to run both and render to mp3. Plus, I really like Reaper and its philosophy so I support them.

Piano One is fully featured and free to download and use. Pianoteq's Bluethner demo version is missing some notes (in order to make you pay eventually), but used in this context, I can get away with the free demo version. It is just under the hood, adding support, body and life to the Piano One samples.

I am certainly not the first to try this hybrid approach of modelling and sampling, but I think that this will be the likely piano software/DP future, if we ever want anything better than what's been posted here already.

Relevant to some conversations in other threads, it's apparent how wildly different people's opinions can be about which sounds are better than which!

I wish there had been some more held notes and chords without motion underneath, the sample seemed lacking in that.

I'd rate them in roughly this order, with skipped lined to delineate where I found bigger jumps:

DN

FCG HJ

BEIA (ff is bright and brittle, reminds me of some Rolands)

I didn't want to listen to the really bad ones multiple times to try to determine which was worst out of a bad batch. ;-) But really, a lot toward the end started getting pretty bad, starting with K. From there to the end (except for N) each one seemed probably worse than the one before. So I guess the worst one is R.

But who knows. Maybe tomorrow, I'd come up with some different answers ;-)

I incorrectly identified a sound source D as Garageband/Pianoteq when D is Galaxy Vintage D with custom EQ/Processing.

How? When I originally created the DAW working files I pretty much stuck with one product then moved on. Sometimes I went back to rework something or to dig through additional presets. I created several DAW project files. I could not use one for all of this because it taxed my system.

When I was ready to make mp3s I opened the projects and exported sound files naming them A-P. I made notes on an index card. Initially, the designated letters of the mp3 files showed a pattern as they were grouped together according to the software.

The final step in the process was renaming the files to shuffle the sequence to make it random. I manually randomized the sequence making additional notations in my notes. Many people said 18 files were too many. I had more that I did not include. I misread my notes thinking I had uploaded the Garageband/Pianoteq file.

I thought of using HalionSonic after I had completed and uploaded the others to SoundCloud. With 18 files, having a couple made with the same product next to each other would not matter. I ended up with both HalionSonic files (Q&R) back to back at the end.

Besides having fun participating in this survey, what can we learn from this? Is it that each software program can be EQ'd an processed to sound pretty good or very bad. Seems like a waste of time to me?